Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by sgtclub

What is the Right you keep talking about? The anti-abortion crowd is taking the fight in stages. Why do you think the pro-choice crowd puts up such a fight to parental notification? The first step is to overturn Roe. After that is accomplished I am confident that there will be a movement to federalize the issue in the other direction. The GOP no longer stands for localization of social issues. Oh, and by the way, the fucking hypocritical non-cultural conservatives will remain silent on the issue.

I'm confident there will be a movement to do that too, at least because there are people who want to do it. But I'm also confident that they will never have the numbers to do this until viability is pushed back to conception.

[Spanky]

As much as the progressives and populists in Latin America try to blame the US for all their problems and argue that Free Market Reforms are underhanded attempts of multinational corporations to exploit the Latin American people, the existence of Chile just destroys their argument.

I was watching Alvaro Vargas Llosa on Booknotes talking about his book, Liberty for Latin American, and the Chilean ambassador to the US stood up and explained Chiles free market success. In the past twenty years Chile has experienced growth rates of 6%. According to most analysts Chiles has the freest market in the Americas. Some say the US is freer but it definitely is by far the freest in Latin America. In the past twenty years they have reduced the number of people in poverty by 80 percent. In fact they have the smalles poverty rate of any country in Latin America. They have negotiated bilateral trade treaties with most countries in the world and as a result their average tariff is just 3%. They are completely open to Mulitnationals, and because of all this exploitation by US companies etc. they have the best growth rates of any Latin American economy. Llosa confirmed the success of the Chilean economy, but said unfortunately it was the exception. Most other countrys have not instituted their reforms with as much vigor as Chile and consequently have not nearly had the success Chile has. How many free market economies have to succeed, and protected markets fail, before liberals and progressives will finally admit that free markets bring better benefits to their citizens.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Richard Riordan was the last Republican mayor. Hahn succeeded him in 2001.



LA's problems are myriad and deep, but when I read the LA Times and listed to the radio reports on the mayoral race, I don't read much at all about this "crime issue" you find to be such a prism into the intelligence of the populace.

I've neither seen nor heard anyone discussing "get[ting] rid of the [s]R[/s] mayor rather than hire 2000 more police officers like Bratton requested."

Hahn's troubles for re-election revolve largely around the fact that he hired (and more importantly later fired) an African American police chief who had risen through the ranks. From what I've read, people seem to think that his firing was a good idea substantively, but it deeply alienated the black community, which is a big chunk of the electorate for mayor.

Hahn is currently polling about 50-50 with his challenger Villaragosa, and that's substantially down from last time, when he won about 80% of the black vote. Right now the two are flinging insults at each other as being untrustworthy, and very little of the heat generated by the debates seem to revolve around the hiring or nonhiring of police officers.

Notably, the biggest problem in the LA mayoral race is that the citizenry is almost uniformly ignoring it. This self-absorption of the populace is, I understand, a hallmark of Los Angeles politics in between riots, plagues, or other events of crisis.

I'll admit I'm assuming background familiarity with what I'm talking about, which is certainly only a small part of the dynamics involved in LA politics. Basically, a few months ago, Haht was shot down in the City council or whatever when he requested funding for a whole lotta new police officers. Bratton said progress was stalling because of sheer manpower issues, as LA has nowhere near the per-capita police force in place in other major cities (not sure how the LA county force's numbers play into this). They staked their future on it, and the council shot em down.

As it turns out, this was pretty much a precursor to the mayoral race, as the chief critic was Parks (who has endorsed Hahn's current opponent).

Its not coming up so much anymore on Google News, but it seemed like a pretty major story 8 months ago or so.

I'm using it to show the issue (the only one I really care about vis a vis America's cities) at stake, as well as the stark choice that LA voters are faced with. Either back Hahn, who appears to be the only person to seriously address crime in quite awhile in LA, or accept the people who stonewalled him on crime.

Tying it all together, it puts LA in a horrible light.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Skeks in the city
The free traders would have us believe that China is good at work that requires a content of manual labor. But is that so? The fact is that they aren't good at manual labor, they're just cheap. The economists are misusing Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. China's cheap labor has nothing to do with China's manufacturing expertise, nor with any innate natural resource blessings. Instead it has everything to do with a bloated population starved for work. At a wage rate of less than 50 cents an hour, with no benefits or social protections of the sort that we have evolved, there is nothing free about this trade on either side of the ocean.

Nope. That is pretty much what Ricardo meant.

Free traders heartlessly assert that costs are costs, however they are derived. So ask them this: "If free trade means that a society is better off by sourcing its manufactures in low wage areas, regardless of the reasons why the wages are so low, what is wrong with trading with a nation who can offer the cheapest labor of all, slave labor? At those prices, wouldn't we be even more better off?"

Economic concerns are not the only ones.

But today, unlike in the days when the farmers left the fields, there are no new emerging and substantial maker-methods realistically in sight.

Hindsight is wonderful, isn't it?

This is the gamble at the heart of free trade policies: Free traders are betting with a blind faith that because in the past a burgeoning maker industry took up the slack during another maker-segment's contraction, a new one will somehow appear in this time of need and save the day.

Or maybe they think that we can't keep getting richer while the rest of the world lags behind...

This may be the single dumbest article ever posted.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
It is articles like these that remind me why I am such a staunch Republican. I would much rather be in a Party with all the arch Social Conservatives than with the moron that wrote this piece.

Keep in mind that one need not be a Republican to be in favor of free trade. See, e.g. W. J. Clinton.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
Keep in mind that one need not be a Republican to be in favor of free trade. See, e.g. W. J. Clinton.

Yes that is true, but most Democrats are not. Clinton and Gore were and are. They are the good Democrats. Gore became a hero of mine when he took on Perot on Larry King over NAFTA. I am still waiting for the large sucking sound. Gephart etc. are the bad Democrats. However, the vote on NAFTA that Clinton pushed through, the overwhelming majority of yes votes were Republicans. When Bush asked for Trade Authority almost no Democrats voted to give it too him. Most of the Dems have said they will not support the Caribbean and Central American Free Trade Agreement.

You can say what you want about Social Conservatives, but most are knee jerk free marketeers. Santorum, Delay, etc. are very good on this point.

[Hank Chinaski]

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
I say that you've allowed yourself to be painted into a corner by accepting characterizations from the left, and this is your answer?

Seriously, I'm reading this essentially as:
we didn't get painted into a corner by accepting characterizations from the left (i.e., not clearly establishing our non-cultural-conservative position) on abortion, that's what happened on hispanics.

So which is it, not communicating well on abortion and guns, or not communicating well to hispanics?
When you and Spanky determine which corner you've (i.e., the Californian non-cultural-conservatives) been painted into, let me know and I'll try to send help to get you out. I mean, you guys should know better than anyone how you got where you are today.

FWIW, I agree with you as a general matter about the need to make "a real effort to court the hispanic vote" (and the votes of all other ethnicities while we are at it), and I've been vocal about this here before.

Anyhoo, none of your brilliant response addresses my point about how you've let the left paint your collective position on abortion. I accepted the abortion and gun thing as Spanky's premise. If you disagree with the premise, take it up with him please.

Do you even know what Prop 187 was?

[sgtclub]

• A book battle has broken out on Publisher's Row over the ultimate Hillary-attack!
  
  The project being billed as "Hillary in the Raw", like you've never seen her before, is set to drop in September by liberal Ed Klein, former NYT MAGAZINE editor, VANITY FAIR, PARADE contributor and author of multiple works on the Kennedys.
  
  "The revelations in it should sink her candidacy," a source close to Klein warns the DRUDGE REPORT.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by sgtclub

• A book battle has broken out on Publisher's Row over the ultimate Hillary-attack!
  
  The project being billed as "Hillary in the Raw", like you've never seen her before, is set to drop in September by liberal Ed Klein, former NYT MAGAZINE editor, VANITY FAIR, PARADE contributor and author of multiple works on the Kennedys.
  
  "The revelations in it should sink her candidacy," a source close to Klein warns the DRUDGE REPORT.

I thought you didn't believe anything from Vanity Fair.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
I'll admit I'm assuming background familiarity with what I'm talking about, which is certainly only a small part of the dynamics involved in LA politics.

Given the way you started this thread -- talking about LA's Republican mayor -- perhaps you ought to just let it drop.

Of course, I don't have your level of background familiarity with the facts, so maybe it's just me.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The project being billed as "Hillary in the Raw"

That is just so, so wrong. On so many levels, the first one being the breakfast I'm about to toss.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
You can say what you want about Social Conservatives, but most are knee jerk free marketeers. Santorum, Delay, etc. are very good on this point.

Except when it comes to farm subsidies, of course. (Or are those mandated by the Bible?)

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Given the way you started this thread -- talking about LA's Republican mayor -- perhaps you ought to just let it drop.

Of course, I don't have your level of background familiarity with the facts, so maybe it's just me.

Though I have no idea what LA's not!Republican mayor has to do with me.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I thought you didn't believe anything from Vanity Fair.

Congrats, you have made the ignore list. I can't promise not to click in times of boredom, but I thought you would want to know that your sheer idiocy and nonresponsiveness and willful assholosity finally pushed you over the line.